Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have been surprised by the running order of speakers, particularly as some people ahead of me on the list did not contribute.

Regarding the issue of biodiversity, certainly from my experience, it is a process of education. Some of the best ambassadors I have seen for the issue of biodiversity are the local Tidy Towns groups around the country. These also demonstrate how, when we invest in educating the public on the issue of biodiversity, it not only becomes an issue they can get behind but also one they can significantly champion. This message of education and persuasion and of informing and empowering the public is also rooted in how we persuade the wider public regarding the issues concerning the biodiversity crisis.

In the context of many of our local constituency offices, it is the active volunteers, the Tidy Towns groups and the environmental groups who would be the first onto us if a patch of grass had not been cut by the council or if an area of land had been allowed to become overgrown. Yet in the context of work undertaken by Dublin City Council by virtue of significant training and investment, those Tidy Towns and environmental groups have been brought together and have been informed and educated about the benefit of biodiversity and why, in some cases, planned biodiversity, which is the phrase I will use, is important and necessary. I do make a distinction between planned biodiversity and neglect or withdrawal of services by a local authority. These are very different things and we do a major disservice to biodiversity by dressing up a withdrawal of service in that guise. I will return to this point in a moment because this is one thing that has happened in Dublin City Council. Biodiversity is being used as an excuse to withdraw services.

In a broader context, I believe it is at the grassroots level, to use that phrase, that we can ensure we can gain the political support Deputy Leddin spoke about in respect of biodiversity. My local Tidy Towns group in Finglas has many biodiversity projects that have greatly enhanced the village. One of them is the woodland biodiversity garden, which was recovered from disuse with the support of Dublin City Council. It has been transformed into a great biodiversity area for young children, with many different amenities for them and ways for them to engage with the ecology of the area.

In Ballymun, the biodiversity group, led by our current Lord Mayor, in conjunction with the Ballymun Tidy Towns group, launched its strategy in March 2022. I was privileged to attend that event. The group carried out a survey between 2019 and 2021 to enable the development of a biodiversity action plan for Ballymun. Remarkably, in an area with much urban development but also fields, scrubland, hedgerows and so on, an exceptionally rare stonewort was found at the very bottom of a drainage ditch near the M50 during the process. Apparently, and I am leaning on the experts here, this species is of interest to botanists internationally and had not been recorded in the Dublin region since the 1800s. This is positive news for many reasons, one of which is that the survey also identified 77 other species of plants and animals as being officially endangered.

Over the past 50 years, we have seen that wetland species in particular have declined by nearly 80%. The Santry Tidy Towns group has done incredible work in this area. It has received funding from Pobal for its diversity action plan and the group now wants to turn this strategy into actions to implement many of its recommendations. One specific measure concerns floating islands for shrubs in Santry Park, which is one of the group's key projects.

I certainly welcome the fourth national biodiversity action plan, which will be published later this year. We talk about climate action and biodiversity. Deputy Leddin made a good point concerning wetlands. It is a process of explanation. I say this because I was not aware of this aspect. I refer to the idea that dry peatlands are, in themselves, emitters of carbon and that by reintroducing water to those areas we can reduce carbon emissions. In a carbon budget where we are examining every part of society and making reductions, rewetting boglands seems like one way in which we can reduce emissions without significantly making changes to our lifestyle.

That poses huge challenges for farmers and agriculture, but it is incredibly important that we take the easy opportunities to reduce carbon and not leave ourselves with the difficult ones.

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